Xiaomi’s MIUI ROM Is Said To Have Several Major Security Problems

Xiaomi is home for few of the most popular smartphones being sold in India like the Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4, etc. The company has sold millions of these smartphones here in India and they have been doing extremely good when it comes to sales. And talking about these smartphones, they indeed offer a lot of value for the money, as they have really good internals. However, the software is a completely different story.

If you are using any of the smartphones from Xiaomi, then you probably already know about MIUI. MIUI is the company’s custom version of Android, which some of you would like to call a ‘skin’ on top of the stock Android. MIUI is considered to be one of the most heavily skinned versions of Android which you can find on the market and it is quite annoying how the UI is a cluttered. Now, on top of that, it looks like the MIUI ROM is also said to have several major security problems.

The research firm eScan has reported about these issues. Apparently one of the problems is with the Mi-Mover app, which can be used to move apps and settings from any Android smartphone running Android 4.2 or higher to a Xiaomi phone. This is a very popular feature amongst the users. However, it has been reported that if both the smartphone involved in the moving process are running MIUI, then it looks like all the data is moved to the other phone including confidential information, etc.

So, the application which does not check the device or require a PIN at launch like Twitter, etc. are affected, which makes it quite easy to copy all the user information. Another problem was found in how MIUI handles the device-administrator apps. As you may or may not know, many of the security apps require the user to authenticate before letting them uninstall the app. However, with MIUI, it was discovered that no authentication was asked. This means that if someone stole your Xiaomi smartphone, then before you even use the anti-theft app and wipe your device, the person can simply uninstall the app and be done with it.

Not just that, there are a ton of other issues as well and you can head over to the source link below to read more about them in detail. Apparently, Xiaomi is already aware of this and they have issued an official statement as well, in which they are requesting the Xiaomi smartphone users to lock their device. However, they have not mentioned anything about addressing those issues. Yes, all of the above-mentioned flaws requires an unlocked device and considering the fact that most of the smartphones have a fingerprint scanner, etc. for authentication these days, which makes it very convenient.

Having said that, we hope these issues will be addressed at least in the future versions of MIUI. Meanwhile, you can let us know your thoughts on this by leaving a comment down below.

Source – eScan (PDF)